


Scars

by thedevilchicken



Category: The Mummy Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-28
Updated: 2007-02-28
Packaged: 2018-04-05 11:02:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4177365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rick and Ardeth meet again. And again. And again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scars

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to Livejournal on 28 February 2007.

Days in the desert are scorching, parching, and to survive there in that brutal, savage heat, in the winds and the sands and the bone-deep cold of the night, takes great skill and great determination. It takes great knowledge, like that of the Medjai. 

Ardeth was born and raised in the deserts of Africa, understanding the importance that lies in recalling the exact positions of oases, of paths in the sand that will lead him across borders only ever real on maps. The only laws that deep in the wind-swept dunes are those of the Medjai, his people. He is the most skilled of them, and so he is their leader. 

He always knows when O'Connell is coming, but that's not so much thanks to his skill as to his network of watchers and guards and lookouts, spies in the shadows everywhere from the port at Alexandria to the bars in Cairo and the noisy little bazaars where Rick always buys his supplies. And Rick never tries to hide his approach, he's rather gleefully obvious about it all, though Ardeth suspects that he couldn't speak lowly if he tried. And Ardeth never turns him away, no matter how inconvenient his arrival may be. 

Rick brings the drink. He stashes water and gin in his pack and Ardeth never asks how he knew where to find him - the Medjai are nomadic people but Rick always finds him wherever they are, no matter how deep they've delved into the desert. It's never in the day, though, always at night, and night in the desert will chill down to the bone; it's night and he's here now, again. Ardeth's been expecting him since he arrived in Egypt over a week ago. He steps from his tent and into the fire-lit camp to greet him with a handshake, a clasp of his arm. Rick laughs at this and embraces him instead - it will probably seem strange to the men as it always does, but the two of them have been so often comrades in arms down the years that the brief hug between them seems totally insufficient. 

Ardeth welcomes him inside from the cold and the hollow howl of the wind, and they sit, Rick pulling a bottle from his bag and proceeding to drink like a fish, as always. They talk; there's a lot for them to talk about, not just the immortal Imhotep and all that story entails but everything that's happened since then. Rick can't stop talking about Atlantis this time, though Ardeth has only the vaguest memory of the legends. Evie thinks she's found it and honestly, Ardeth wouldn't be at all surprised if she has, he just tells Rick to tell her to be careful, as if she will ever take anyone's counsel but her own. Rick even asks him along but they both know he won't accept. His place is in the desert, where it's always been. 

It's the same story every time. They play around it, talk of old times, trade old stories that they each know all too well, Rick going off on one of his various army tangents or Ardeth telling him again about the things he knows he shouldn't but will anyway, if just because such is the extent of his trust in him. Imhotep is far from the only secret that the Medjai keep out there in the desert and Ardeth knows them all, presides over them. So they talk and Rick drinks until one of them stops the other with three familiar words: _any new scars?_ It's usually Rick, because Ardeth doesn't drink and even if he did it's obvious that he'd have more self-control in these evenings, that they share perhaps once a year and often less frequent still, than Rick will have in his whole lifetime. 

But sometimes, just sometimes, Ardeth will choose to end the game early, save Rick's dignity just a little of its inevitable bruising. Tonight is one of those nights. 

Rick has a couple, an unimpressive inch-long line above his ankle that has something to do with werewolves and another from a snake bite he got back home in America; it's strange that it's that last, the most normal, the most everyday, that concerns Ardeth the most. They both have scars from Imhotep and the rest but the idea that it could be a snake that kills Rick and not some kind of dramatic supernatural event... it's frightening. If the undead can't kill him, if Imhotep can only scar him, he just shouldn't be able to die from normal means.

Ardeth has new scars, too. Rick, drunk, smiling his bright and lopsided smile, traces them with his rough fingertips, the ragged scratch of a bullet in his shoulder that will now always feel still in the cold, the long and still not quite healed wound across his side from a sword that was mercifully sharp. He tells him how weak he felt from it, how ugly it was to see his own blood staining the sand like that. Rick pushes up his shirt a little more, ducks his head to press his mouth to that place but Ardeth can't feel it; he tells him how it hurt when they stitched him back together and Rick nods because he can imagine how that felt. They're different in so many ways but in some they're so alike. 

Rick's thumbs trace the tattoos on Ardeth's cheeks as they come together. Rick pushes back Ardeth's long hair from his face; Ardeth's hands settle at Rick's hips and he smiles faintly, amused by the sharp white tan lines he finds there. Undressed, naked in the lamplight, they're not so very different at all. 

Rick will leave in the morning, tomorrow or the day after, a week at the most. He'll go home to his wife and his son, the family such as Ardeth denies himself - there are curses enough in the world for him to hope never to bring another child into it. He supposes he lacks Rick's courage in that. 

He'll leave, with sand in his hair, wave from the dunes, and Ardeth will watch for a while, longer than he should let himself, before he returns to his tent. He hopes they will see each other again, but for men such as they are, there can be no guarantees. And so, they'll make the most of what little time they have.


End file.
